Dried Apricots

I have dug one of my older books out entitled "Fruity Passions" by Margaret Vaughan  ISBN 0 563 20793 0 (It's still available on Amazon) which accompanied a television series of the same name in the 1990's.  It was quite an entertaining series a beginners guide to winemaking but there were also a lot of food recipes too. I thoroughly enjoyed the series  and I bought the book and have used it over the years.  I have made the following recipes before, but it has been quite some time since I made them and so in a sense this is a ressurection of familiar recipes.  What I like about this recipe is that it is thrifty.  Dried Apricots are pricy anyway so to get two items out of the one product to my mind is good value for money and we all have to look after the pennies.  The book also gives general directions for how to make wine. 

We start with the Apricot Wine Recipe:

8oz dried Apricots
6 pints of water
2lb sugar
1 teaspoon of tartaric acid
1/2 teaspoon of citric acid
4 fl oz strong black tea cooled and strained
1/4 oz wine yeast




Method

Wash the fruit well to remove the oils and soak overnight in 3 pints of water.  Chop up the Apricots and simmer in the same water for 25 minutes or so. Strain the juice on to the sugar in a fermentation bucket and stir to dissolve the sugar.  Make up to 6 pints of water with cooled boiled water and add all the other ingredients except the yeast.  Start the yeast in a separate bottle and get it going and then add it to the lukewarm must (liquid from the apricots).  Put the must into a fermention jar and seal with an airlock.  Allow it to work itself out topping up occasionally in the usual way.  Siphon into bottles and allow to mature.

Now on the following day you can make the


Apricot Chutney

Ingredients

Pulp from the Apricot Wine
1lb of apples peeled cored and chopped
1 pint of vinegar
Pickling spices
4oz raisins washed
4oz sultanas washed
1 teaspoon of salt
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1lb brown sugar
Finely grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

Method

Place the apricot pulp, chopped apples and 1/2 pint of vinegar into a large saucepan.  Add the pickling spices tiend in a muslin bag.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.  Add the washed raisins and sultanas, salt, chopped garlic and the remaining vinegar.  Simmer for another 15 minutes then add the brown sugar  and the lemon rind and juice.  Boil gently for about 45 minutes until the chutney is nice and thick.  Remove the bag of pickling spices and seal immediately into warm jars.

That's why I like the older recipes as you can get double duty out of the ingredients.  i.e. if you make an apple jelly, then turn the peels and pulp left over in the jelly bag into an Apple cheese.  Something for nothing is always a bonus.

Catch you all a bit later

Pattypan

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